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THE HISTORY 



FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 



AUBURN, N. Y. 



A DISCOURSE DELIVERED SAB3ATH, MARCH 7, 1889, OX LEAVlXG THE OLD CH'JRCH 
PREVIOUS TO ITS REMOVAL TO GIVE PLACE TO THE NEW EDIFICE. 



BY 



CHARLES HAVVLEY, D.D. 

PASTOR. 



AUBURN : 

PUBLISHED BY DENNIS BRO'S & CO. 



1809. 



THE HISTORY 



op THE 



FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 

AUBURN, N. Y. 



A DISCOURSE DELIVERED SABBATH, MARCH 7, 1869, ON LEAVING THE OLD CHURCH 
PREVIOUS TO ITS REMOVAL TO GIVE PLACE TO THE NEW EDIFICE. 



BY 

CHARLES HAWLEY, D.D. 

PASTOR. 



AUBURN : 

PUBLISHED BY DENNIS BRO'S & CO. 
1869. 
* It 




CORRESPONDENCE. 



Auburn, March 10, 1869. 

Rev. Charles Hawley, D.D — 

Dear Sir : Having heard with great satisfaction your valuable 
historical discourse, delivered last Sabbath at the First Presby- 
terian Church in this city, the undersigned respectfully request a 
copy of the same, for publication. 

Very truly, yours, 



RICHARD STEEL, 
S. WILLARD, 
I. F. TERRILL, 
A. H. GOSS, 
JAMES HYDE, 
F. L. GRISWOLD, 

JOHN S. FOWLER. 
HORACE T. COOK, 
JOHN OLMSTED, 



J. S. SEYMOUR, 
H. WOODRUFF, 
D. HEWSON, 
ABU AH FITCH. 
H. J. SARTWELL, 
C. A. LEE, 



Elders. 



E. C. SE LOVER. 

G. J. LETCHWORTH, 

C. H. MERRIMAN, 

Trustees. 



Auburn, March 13, 1869. 

Gentlemen — 

Your request is very gratifying to me, and, in complying with 
it, I can only express the desire that the discourse thus kindly re- 
ceived, may serve, in its more permanent form, to keep in remem- 
brance a history so worthy of preservation. 

Most respectfully and sincerely yours. 

CHAS. HAWLEY. 
To the Session and Trustees of the First Presbyterian Church, etc. 



HISTOEICAL SEEM02T. 



" One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy 
mighty acts. 1 ''— Psalm cxlv. 4. 

It is fifty-two years, the present month, 
since this house, in which we hold our last reli- 
gious services to-day, was dedicated to the wor- 
ship of God. This was less than a quarter of 
a century after the first settlement of the town. 
The men who took an active part in its erec- 
tion, with two or three exceptions,* are gone 
from the living. It is the only public build- 
ing in the place that has survived the changes 
of that period ; and scarcely a private dwell- 
ing, which was cotemporary with it, remains. 
It has been preserved through these event- 
ful years, alike from calamity and desecration ; 
and now yields only to the necessities of church 
growth, which, for some time, it has been in- 
adequate to meet. All familiar with Auburn, 



2 



particularly its older residents, regret its remo- 
val, and with it almost the last trace of the 
town as it was fifty years ago. But a more sacred 
sentiment forbids its disappearance without 
emotion. The past is revived, and we recall 
what God hath here wrought to his praise — 
the numbers that have found salvation within 
these walls, and been disciplined for heaven, 
with the whole sum of influence that has gone 
out near and far, from this center of spiritual 
light and life. These are saintly memories, and 
they cluster thickly about the holy building, 
and become the more precious, now that it is 
so soon to pass from our sight. Other genera- 
tions must seek and serve God on this ground, 
before the new house, to which this gives place, 
will have become invested .with similar asso- 
ciations. This is a part of the sacrifice in- 
volved in the good work we have undertaken, 
in doing for those who are to come after us, 
what was done by a former generation for our- 
selves. It was neither to be expected, nor de- 
sired, that the ties which bound us to this ven- 
erable sanctuary should be sundered at a blow ; 



3 



and if we have appeared to others to move 
slowly and reluctantly in our new enterprise, 
it has been for reasons which perhaps all could 
not fully appreciate. We have waited for time 
and events to solve doubts and difficulties, al- 
Avays incident to an undertaking of this mag- 
nitude ; but not too long, as all now see, for the 
best result. The way has thus been prepared, 
in the good providence of God, to enter upon the 
work with a cordial unanimity and a generous 
zeal, which reflect great honor upon the con- 
gregation. We have begun to build a Chris- 
tian temple, intended in the durability of its 
material, its substantial architecture and spaci- 
ous accommodations, to continue for many gen- 
erations. And, as " the palace is not for man, 
but for the Lord God," we may confidently 
hope that he in whose favor we have begun, 
will continue to guide and bless us, until we 
see the work completed. 

The present occasion is an appropriate one to 
review the entire history of this church, already 
some years in its second half-century. This 
history is closely identified with that of the 



4 



town from its origin. The men who came here 
to fell the first trees, to build the first mills, and 
open the first stores, and shops, and inns (not al- 
ways the nurseries of morals), were the men who 
formed churches, established schools, and pro- 
vided with a liberal foresight for the moral and 
religious interests of the place. There was noth- 
ing in this immediate locality to attract the idle 
and the vicious, or to detain that class of mere 
adventurers ever found on the advance wave 
of immigration. But for its fine water-power, 
it might have remained to this day the same 
unsightly spot it was seventy-five years ago. A 
miry swamp, dark with hemlocks, and flanked 
by sharp and broken hills, was not prophetic 
of our Auburn, as certainly it was not sugges- 
tive, unless by way of contrast, of a name which 
the poet's genius has ever associated with the 
" loveliest village of the plain." There was once 
an Indian village on or near this site, if we may 
believe the tradition, while the ancient mounds 
along the brow of Fort Hill would indicate 
another, and perhaps older race, that once lived 
and struggled on this ground, and passed away. 



5 



The changes, however, by which this unpromis- 
ing spot has been transformed into a thriving 
and beautiful city, have been wrought within 
three-quarters of a century, and in immediate 
connection with religious institutions. 

The first settler, Col. John L. Hardenburgh, 
w^as from a Dutch family prominent in the colo- 
nial history of the State as early as the time of 
Queen Anne, under whose royal seal was issued 
the famous grant of land known as the Harden- 
burgh Patent. He was an officer of the Revo- 
lution, entering the army as Lieutenant of the 
Second New York regiment, June 20th, 1777, 
the date of his commission, and served with 
distinction until the close of the war. He 
took part in the expedition under General 
Sullivan against the Iroquois in 1787, and two 
years after conducted the survey of the military 
tract reserved by the State for bounty lands to 
soldiers. Having selected lot No. forty-seven, 
marked on his map of survey as " a good mill 
site," he came here to settle, in 1793, from Rosen- 
dale, Ulster county, N. Y., bringing with him a 
single white man and four or five slaves. This 



6 



lot, a mile square, now comprises the large and 
growing part of the city east of the line of 
North and South streets. He built a log house 
near the present junction of Franklin and Mar- 
ket streets, which, together with a saw and grist 
mill, erected by him near where the Outlet 
crosses Genesee street, formed the nucleus of 
the settlement known as Hardenburgh's Cor- 
ners. William Bostwick came from Connecticut 
the following year, and added a tavern to the 
conveniences of the place, the comfort and hos- 
pitality of which won the praises of early trav- 
elers. This was only five years after the first 
white man had settled on the Genesee river, 
with scarcely half a dozen families scattered 
along the entire route from Fort Stanwix on 
the Mohawk, to Geneva on Seneca lake. But 
the tide of immigration now began to flow in 
rapidly. In 1795 a stanch colony of ten families 
came from Gettysburg, Pa., and made a settle- 
ment about three miles up the Owasco. They at 
once organized a Reformed Protestant Dutch 
church, choosing Jacob* Brinkerh off and Corne- 
lius Van Auken elders, with Roeliff Brinkerhoff 



7 



and Thomas Johnson deacons, and built a rude 
house of worship, the first erected within the 
present limits of the county. Colonel Harden- 
burgh, being connected with the colony by ties 
of family relationship and of religious faith, 
identified himself with this society, which took 
its corporate form and title at a meeting held 
in his house, September 23d, 1796. He was 
married the same year to Martina Brinkerhoff, 
and the names of his two children, John Her- 
ring and Maria, appear on the baptismal reg- 
ister of the Owasco church in the years 1798 
and 1800, under the pastorate of Rev. Abram 
Brokaw. Colonel Hardenburgh died, after a 
brief illness, on the 25th of April, 1806, in the 
59th year of his age, and was buried in the 
North-street cemetery with military honors. 
He was a firm patriot and a brave soldier, and 
is remembered by the older inhabitants as a 
genial companion, and a kind hearted, gener- 
ous man. 

The infant settlement was now fairly on its 
slow but steady march of progress. It had 
a population of about two hundred and fifty, 



8 



and had taken the name of Auburn. In the 
meanwhile, at several other points in the town- 
ship, there were small groups of settlers, who 
had begun to clear away the forest and plant 
the institutions of religion. 

The first missionaries who came into this 
region, of whose labors we have any account, 
were sent by the General Assembly of the 
Presbyterian church. As early as 1795, Rev. 
Daniel Thatcher, of the Presbytery of Orange, 
passed through the military tract, seeking out- 
its scattered families and preaching as he had 
opportunity. In 1798, Rev. Asa Hillyer, of 
the same Presbytery, and pastor at Orange, 
N. J., performed similar service in this vi- 
cinity, confining his labors chiefiy to Genoa 
and Aurora. About the same time Rev. Aaron 
Condit,* then pastor of the church at Hanover, 
N. J., accompanied by his excellent deacon Silas 
Ball, made a missionary tour on horseback, by 
the way of Owego, as far north as Aurelius, 
having special regard to the families that had 
gone from his own parish into the new settle- 



* The father of Prof. J. B. Condit, D.D.. of Auburn Theological Seminary. 



9 



ments. Coming upon a small cluster of houses 
in this immediate neighborhood, after the day's 
ride, he held an evening service, and admin- 
istered the Lord's supper to a little hand of 
eleven disciples. A year or two afterward, 
the good Dr. Perrine, then a licentiate of the 
Presbytery of New Brunswick, and so grate- 
fully remembered from his subsequent resi- 
dence in Auburn as a theological professor, 
itinerated over this ground, and hence through 
Ontario and Seneca counties, threading his 
way, as he used to say, along paths marked 
by blazed trees through a continuous forest. 

But the more systematic labors which re- 
sulted in the formation of churches in this 
region, were by missionaries sent out by the 
General Association of Connecticut, In 1798, 
Rev. Seth Williston spent four months in this 
county, preaching, attending conferences, vis- 
iting the sick, administering the sacraments, 
and finding " some Christians in all the set- 
tlements." He also organized churches in 
Aurora and Locke. Rev. Jedediah Bushnell, 
near the close of the year 1799, gave two 

2 



10 



months of missionary service in this county, 
and reports " a number of settlements where 
God is beginning his glorious work, and the 
people everywhere anxious to receive the gos- 
pel.'' Rev. Solomon King gives similar testi- 
mony of the work of God, and the hunger of 
the people for the bread of life. Williston, in 
a letter giving account of revivals occurring 
on this field, under date of April 29th, 1799, 
writes : " I have lately heard from Aurelius, in 
Onondaga county, that the spirit of God is 
poured out upon one part of the town." He 
sees the way thus prepared for the establish- 
ment of gospel churches, and exclaims with 
more than his wonted enthusiasm, " O that 
these lights were all burning and shining ! 
What a luster they would shed around our 
desert ! " We have now come to the date of 
the formation of the first church within the 
present limits of Auburn and Aurelius. It 
was one of the " lights " kindled in the great 
revival of 1799. For some two or three years, 
the church was dependent upon the casual 
labors of the passing missionary, until 1801, 



11 

when Rev. David Higgins, from North Lyme, 
Ct., visited it in his brief service of the Con- 
necticut Association, and accepted a call as its 
pastor, with the understanding that he would 
return the following year for permanent settle- 
ment. It took corporate form and title as the 
First Congregational Society of Aurelius, May 
21, 1802, at a meeting held at the public house 
of Henry Moore, situated about a mile from 
the Half Acre, on the road to Union Springs. 
Cromwell Bennett and Ansel McCall presided, 
and nine trustees were elected, viz : Thomas 
Mumford, Henry Moore, John Grover, Jr., Josiah 
Taylor, Hezekiah Goodwin, William Bostwick, 
Moses Lyon, Joseph Grover, and Jesse Davis. 
These names represented the several settle- 
ments within the town, where small congre- 
gations had already been gathered, which, as 
we shall see, subsequently became separate 
churches, our own among the number. 

Mr. Higgins returned, according to the ar- 
rangement, and was installed October 9th, 
1802, by a council composed of Presbyterian and 
Congregational ministers. The next year he 



12 



became a member of the Presbytery of Geneva, 
at its formation, and preached the opening ser- 
mon. His pastoral supervision extending over 
the four congregations — at Hardenburgh's Cor- 
ners, where he took up his residence, Halt' 
Acre, Graver settlement (now Fleming), and 
Cayuga, he held services with preaching at 
each place, once in four Sabbaths ; but, on 
stated occasions, they were accustomed to unite 
in observing the Lord's supper, meeting at the 
house of Henry Moore, until the church edifice 
was built at the Half Acre. 

The congregation here consisted at the time 
of some twenty or thirty persons ; and the 
Sabbath services were held at the red school- 
house which then stood on the south-west cor- 
ner of Genesee and South streets. This con- 
tinued to be the place of meeting until the 
Centre House was built, whose " long room " 
presented more ample and inviting accommo- 
dations. There being no other congregation 
in the village, it embraced all who prized re- 
ligious privileges, without respect to denomi- 
national differences. William Bostwick, al- 



'3 



ready a trustee, and reliable to lead the 
singing, aided by his wife and three children, 
and Dr. Burt, cherish Episcopal preferences — 
both worthy men, and afterward influential in 
forming the first church of that denomination 
in Auburn. Henry Amerman is from the 
Dutch church of Owasco, and John Cumpston 
from the Dutch county of Schoharie, but at 
home with their New England brethren. 
Elijah Esty, born within sight of Plymouth 
Rock, and his wife, a descendant of the Wil- 
liams family, that came over on the May- 
flower, recognize their accustomed spiritual 
fare in the sound and godly teaching of the 
Puritan pastor. Silas Hawley will take care 
that the weekly prayer-meeting is maintained, 
and that at the proper time Auburn shall 
have its church. David Hyde is already here, 
with his heroic mother, who, thirty years be- 
fore, escaped, with her two boys, on horseback, 
from the Massacre of Wyoming. Horace 
Hills and Eleazer, his brother, natives of East 
Hartford, Cfc., are young and enterprising mer- 
chants, who, together with William Brown, a 



H 



successful lawyer; after studying for the minis- 
try, will cIo their full part in sustaining the 
institutions of religion and promoting every 
good work. 

It is evident that the time has arrived for 
considering the propriety of a separate church 
organization for this community. The initial 
step was taken, September 17th, IS 10, when a 
meeting was held at the Centre House, kept 
by David Horner, at which Bartholomew 
J. Van Valkenhurgh and Moses Gilbert pre- 
sided, and John Cumpston served as secretary, 
Robert Dill, Silas Hawley, Henry Amerman, 
Moses Gilbert, and Noah Olmsted were elec- 
ted trustees ; and the organization took the 
corporate title of the First Congregational 
Society of Auburn. It was nearly a year 
after, that the church was formed, as the re- 
sult of " much deliberation and prayer, and 
with a mutual agreement on the subjects of 
experimental and doctrinal religion." The 
event took place in the long room of the 
Centre House, July 14th, 1811, at the usual 
time of public worship, under the direction of 



l 5 



Mr, Higgins, who for nine years had served the 
congregation as an integral portion of his 
parish. The Articles of Faith, and the Cove- 
nant, were similar to those in use among the 
New England churches, and the church took 
the Congregational form. Baptism was ad- 
ministered to Oliver Lynch, on profession of 
his faith. The others renewed their covenant, 
and the simple and impressive scene closed 
with declaring them " a Church of Christ, and 
entitled to all the privileges of his visible 
kingdom." The original members were Daniel 
Haring, Silas Hawley, Oliver Lynch, Eunice 
Higgins, Sarah Gilbert, Betsey Tyler, Rachel 
Parker, Sarah Hawley, Anna Cogswell. The 
following Sabbath the Lord's supper was ad- 
ministered, and the names of Dolly Hyde and 
Marv Ilaring were added to the roll ; soon 
after, those of Horace Hills, Hannah White, 
Rachel Phelps, William Brown, Catherine 
Van Valkenburgh, Charity Rogers; and the 
first year of its organization the church con- 
sisted of seventeen members. In August of 
that year it was taken under the care of the 



i6 



Presbytery of Cayuga, then just formed, and 
having held its first meeting in this place, Jan- 
uary 7th, 1811. 

Mr. Hio^ins remained with the consresra- 
tion here until February, 1813, when he was 
released from his pastoral relations with the 
church of Aurelius to take charge of the 
church of Bath, Steuben county. His ardu- 
ous labors and large usefulness, for the eleven 
years of his ministry in this town, drew from 
his brethren of the Presbytery a warm expres- 
sion of their regard for his eminent service, 
and their personal regret at the separation. 
After serving the church at Bath until 1831, 
and preaching in several other places in that 
neighborhood, he removed to Norwalk, Ohio, 
where he died, Sabbath afternoon, June 18th, 
1842, while sitting in his chair, having attend- 
ed the morning service, as usual. He had 
passed the 80th year of his age, and was in 
the 55th of his ministry. He was a native of 
Haddam, Ct., a graduate of Yale College, a 
pupil in theology of Drs. Smalley and Lyman, 
and pastor of the church in North Lyme for a 



>7 

period of fourteen years, before coming to this 
place. He was a man of liberal culture, of 
commanding presence, genial and occasionally 
humorous in social intercourse, a solid and in- 
structive preacher, a wise and watchful pastor. 
His name will ever be connected with the 
earliest efforts to plant the seeds of gospel truth 
on this ground, so fruitful, through after years, 
in the characteristic graces of evangelical piety. 

The church has now a roll of twenty-seven 
members. One has taken a letter to the church 
at Bath, and she will be missed from the circle 
of godly and praying women. Two have died 
on successive days : one a few weeks only after 
the public profession of her faith in Christ ; and 
the other, Daniel Haring, one of the original 
nine, just as he is about to remove to an ad- 
jacent town. The congregation has received 
some valuable accessions, whose influence upon 
its spiritual welfare will be felt for many years 
to come. Everything indicates improvement. 
The gift of five acres of land by Robert Dill, 
for educational purposes, has secured the estab- 
lishment of an academy, and the erection of- a 



i8 



tine three-story brick building upon the spa- 
cious lot. Auburn has been made the county 
seat, and the court-house is already built, 
ottering a commodious place for worship until 
the new church edifice, which begins to be 
talked of, is secured. But the immediate neces- 
sity is a suitable pastor. A subscription paper 
has been in circulation for the salary ; and 
April 16th, 1813, the congregation are pre- 
pared to extend an unanimous call to Rev. 
Hezekiah North Woodruff, of Aurora, then in 
the town of Scipio. In his reply, after some- 
thing more than two months' consideration, 
accepting the call, Mr. Woodruff expresses the 
fear that the provision made for his support 
"will not l>e fully adequate to free him from 
worldly care and embarrassment ; " but in view 
of the many burdens resting on the society, 
and in the confidence that if at any time the 
proposed salary should he found inadequate, 
" the trustees will make* use of such means 
and measures, from time to time and to the 
utmost of their ability, to make him comforta- 
ble," he is induced to favor the call. The 



installation took place June 22d, 1818. The 
pastor elect, himself, preached the sermon, and 
received, together with the people, the charge 
from Levi Parsons, already some years at Mar- 
melius. Francis Pomeroy, of Brutus, and Seth 
Smith, of Genoa, also took part in the exer- 
cises. These are now cherished names of ven- 
erable and sainted men. 

Early in the pastorate of Mr. Woodruff, the 
propriety of a change in the form of the gov- 
ernment of the church was agitated and freely 
discussed. It had been from the first under the 
care of the presbytery. The reasons which pre* 
vailed in giving it the Congregational type no 
longer existed ; and at a meeting held in the 
court-house, August 15th, 1814, it was unani- 
mously determined to " adopt the Confession 
of Faith and Form of Government of the 
Presbyterian Church in the United States, as 
the standard faith and discipline." At the 
same time Silas Hawley and John Oliphant 
were chosen ruling; elders, and were ordained 
December 4th^ 1814, the former being also set 
apart to the office of deacon. 



20 



The hoard of trustees has also undergone 
some changes since the society took -corporate 
form. The new members are David Hyde, Hor- 
ace Hills, David Horner, and John Oliphant, 
The secular interests of the congregation will be 
well cared for in such hands, and it will not 
be Ions: before something is done toward 
church erection. A female charitable society 
has been formed, auxiliary to the Genesee 
Missionary Society, and is accredited, in 1813, 
with a donation of five dollars, the first con- 
tribution to missions from Auburn of which I 
find any recor^r-' In the summer of 1815, Miles 
'R Squierf /agent of the Young People's Mis- 
sionary Society, organized at Utica the pre- 
vious year, passed through this place, and in the 
absence of the pastor, left for his examination 
a copy of the constitution, which resulted in 
the formation of an auxiliary of nearly an hun- 
dred members, with Horace Hills as president, 
Noble I). Strong (then principal of the acad- 
emy), vice-president, William Bacon, secretary, 
and William Brown, treasurer. The associa- 
tion held quarterly meetings for the reception 



21 



of missionary intelligence, with essays and 
addresses from the members. Its contribu- 
tions the first year were ten dollars and thirty 
cents, with a commendable increase the next 
year to sixty dollars and twenty-five cents. 

It is interesting to know that the congre- 
gation, and especially its young people, were 
in full sympathy, at that early day, with all 
efforts to give the Gospel to the destitute. It was 
the time when the great benevolent societies 
with whose operations we are now familiar were 
coming into being.. Unusual interest was mani- 
fested in the circulation ^f thse : Scriptures ; and 
February 2 2d, 1815, two. years before the Ameri- 
can Bible Society was organized, Mr. Wood- 
ruff presided at a meeting, held at the court- 
house, to form a county Bible society, under 
the auspices of the Presbytery of Cayuga. An 
efficient Tract society was also formed about 
this time, which, with its thorough system of 
visitation, was for many years productive of 
great good. 

In connection with this development of 
benevolent activity, measures for the church 



22 



edifice were so far matured that the work was 
commenced in the spring of 1815. Lawrence 
White, an architect of approved taste, had fur- 
nished a desirable plan. John H. Hardenburgh 
gave the lot ; and the sum of $8,000 was pledged 
to the trustees. I find no record of the pro- 
ceedings, except the original subscription paper, 
time-stained and soiled by much handling, a 
memorial of sacrifice and public spirit worthy 
of preservation. It was faithfully circulated, 
and besides the names identified with the early 
history of the congregation, are others of hon- 
orable and wide reputation, such as Elijah 
Miller and Enos T. Throop, opposite to liberal 
sums. It became necessary to repeat the first 
effort, to which the subscribers responded, in 
most instances, by doubling their subscrip- 
tions. Labor and material were freely con- 
tributed. The work was put under the charge 
of Bradley Turtle, as the master-builder. The 
corner-stone was laid by the pastor with appro- 
priate ceremonies, containing a copy of the 
Bible, as indicative that the church is "built 
upon the foundation of the apostles and 



23 



prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
corner-stone. 11 

The pastorate of Mr. Woodruff occupies a 
period of three years only. But though brief, 
it was an interesting era in the annals of the 
congregation. The church could now report 
fifty-seven members. It had become Presby- 
terian in its polity, and, with multiplied facili- 
ties, had fairly entered upon its prosperous 
career. In the midst of these tokens of suc- 
cess, the ministry of Mr. Woodruff here was 
brought to an abrupt close, by one of those 
liabilities to which the pastoral relation is at 
all times exposed, and to be guarded against 
only by extraordinary prudence. The young 
village of Auburn was in his day greatly agi- 
tated, and much divided in opinion over an 
alleged homicide, the point in dispute being 
whether the man died of the blows inflicted 
by his assailant, or from injudicious treatment 
of his wounds by the attendant physicians. 
Mr. Woodruff's knowledge of the affair came 
by way of pastoral duty, and compelled him 
to be a witness at the inquest and on the trial. 



24 



This involved him in the controversy, which 
took on several phases of excitement, and, .un- 
fortunately finding its way into the pulpit, re- 
sulted at length in a request from the congrega- 
tion that the Presbytery dissolve the relation. 
After a patient examination of the whole case, 
involving a three days' session of the body, the 
request was acceded to, August 27th, 1816, on 
the ground of expediency, with a special min- 
ute by the Presbytery, that this action in no 
way affected the ministerial integrity of the re- 
tiring pastor. He was soon after installed over 
the two churches of Herkimer and Little Falls. 
Mr. Woodruff was a native of Farmington, Ct., 
was educated at Yale College, and was first 
settled at Stonington. Coming into this region 
as early as 1804, after nearly twenty years 1 
experience in the ministry, he took a leading 
part in its ecclesiastical movements, and was 
held in high esteem by his ministerial breth- 
ren. His published sermons evince his thor- 
oughness as a preacher, and he is remembered 
as an attentive and enterprising pastor. Per- 
haps the times were getting ahead of his 



2 5 



conservative tendencies, particularly in respect 
to revival measures, and he might have proved 
less adapted to the new responsibilities of 
this position, than to the work of prepara- 
tion, which he did wisely and well. He died 
in 1833, after serving the gospel nearly fifty 
years. 

Five years had elapsed since the church 
took separate form, when Both its founder and 
first pastor were in other fields of labor. The 
village, incorporated the previous year (1815), 
had now a population of about fifteen hundred. 
The men who were to control its social and 
business enterprises, and give type to its future 
for another generation, were rapidly coming in, 
and much would depend upon the choice of 
the man to occupy a position of such growing 
importance. A call was given to Rev. Dirck 
Cornelius Lansing, whose ministry of eight 
years in Onondaga had been attended with 
signal success, and who at the time was sup- 
plying the pulpit of the Park street church, 
Boston, just after the brilliant pastorate of 
Dr. Griffin. He had already been solicited to 

4 



26 



settle in that city ; and thougl reltictant to 
favor the invitation from Auburn, he was led 7 
from considerations of duty, to visit the ehureh 
here, before giving an answer to the overtures 
from Boston. The result of his preaching a 
single Sabbath determined him, A peculiar 
solemnity attended the services of the day, and 
several conversions occurred. He accepted the 
call in October, 1816, but did not enter upon 
his labors until the following spring. He 
returned March 3d, 1817, the day he was 
thirty-two years of age. 

The church edifice was completed, awaiting 
the coming of the new pastor. Its size was 
fifty-five feet in length by fifty-two feet in 
width, and it had on the floor seventy-four 
slips and ten square pews, the larger part of 
which had been sold for $15,000, a sum which 
nearly covered the cost of the building. An 
additional expenditure of several hundred dol- 
lars would be required to inclose and improve 
the grounds. The bell, weighing 1,250 pounds, 
had already been raised to its place in the 
tower. The whole structure was justly re- 



2 7 



garded at the time as a model of elegance 
and taste; and now, after more than half a cen- 
tury, it requires some nerve to lift the ax and 
the hammer against the carved work of the 
sanctuary. Our fathers did better for the house 
of the Lord than for their own dwellings, the 
best of which were of the plainest sort, and 
architecturally mean in the comparison. When 
we remember that the village, of which it was 
now the pride and ornament, had only fifteen 
hundred inhabitants, and no accumulated 
wealth, and was encompassed by dense forests, 
where are now streets lined with comely and 
costly residences, we cannot withhold our 
grateful tribute to the generous spirit and 
wise forecast, which made the house of God 
the notable and attractive edifice of the place. 
Who can measure the influence of this one 
circumstance upon the character and position 
of this church, from that time to the present 
hour % Its rapid growth, as we shall see, dates 
from its occupancy of the new house. The 
other public buildings of the village were the 
court-house and jail, county clerk's office, and 



28 



the Episcopal church. The dwelling houses 
numbered one hundred and forty-three, with 
ten offices, twenty stores, forty-four mechanic- 
shops, six mills, and I regret to add, six stills. 

The dedication took place March 5th, 1817. 
The day was bright, and as the doors opened 
half an hour before the appointed time for the 
service, the crowd that had gathered immedi- 
ately filled the house. Dr. Lansing offered the 
prayer and preached the sermon from 1 Kings 
viii. 27 : " But will God indeed dwell with 
men upon the earth ( Behold, the heaven of 
heavens cannot contain thee, how much less 
this house that I have builded." The dis- 
course was published, and concludes with the 
petition, which has proved a prophecy : " Bless 
with thy gracious presence, O our Father, thy 
worshipping people in this house. Appear for 
the conviction of sinners and the consolation 
of thy friends ; and in the great day of sol- 
emn adjudication, let it be known that a mul- 
titude of sinners have been born in this house 
to immortal glory.' 1 Here we have the key- 
note of the new ministry. The installation, 



2 9 



preceded by a day of prayer and fasting, 
occurred on the 23d of April. The sermon 
was preached by Caleb Alexander, the pastor's 
father-in-law and successor at Onondaga; Sam- 
uel Parker offered the prayer ; William Wis- 
uer, then at the commencement of his blessed 
ministry at Ithaca, gave the charge to the pas- 
tor, and Jeptha Poole, of Brutus, the charge 
to the people. 

The seal of the Divine approval was quickly 
put upon this pastoral union. The communion 
service of the next Sabbath was followed by 
a church conference, to consider measures for 
advancing the spiritual interests of the com- 
munity. A document prepared by the pastor 
and adopted by the church, expressive of a 
penitent renewal of their covenant with each 
other and the Lord, was read the following 
Sabbath in presence of the congregation, as the 
members of the church arose, and amid the 
tears of the whole assembly, gave it their 
public assent. On the evening of that day, it 
was evident that a work of God, in unusual 
power, had commenced. Dr. Lansing, in later 



3° 



years and with his enlarged experience of relig- 
ious revivals, was accustomed to speak of that 
evening as the most memorable of his life. 
Such was the effect of the truth, applied by 
the Spirit, that the people cried out as in the 
scene of Pentecost, " What must we do V Num- 
bers went weeping to their homes; and some^ 
overcome by their convictions, tarried by the 
way for prayer and Christian sympathy. The 
next morning, and without preconcerted plan, 
members of the church were seen moving from 
house to house, for religious conversation with 
their neighbors, and communicating, as they 
met, the results of their visits. Christians were 
ablaze with unwonted zeal, and the town was 
shaken as with the presence of God. Religion 
became the universal theme. Conviction was 
deep and pungent ; and in most cases of con- 
version the work was short. The converts were 
zealous and bold for their new Master, and the 
revival was of such commanding power, as to 
control every interest, public as well as private. 
Let me give a single incident as illustrative of 
the time. There was in the village at that 



3 1 



early day a large and influential body of the 
Masonic fraternity ; and in the midst of the 
religious interest occurred the anniversary of 
St. John the Baptist, on the 24th of June. 
Dr. Lansing having been connected with the 
order, was selected to conduct the exercises, 
which were held in this house, and to give the 
discourse on the occasion. With a skill of 
adaptation which reminds one of Paul at Areo- 
pagus, he found his theme in the inscription 
on the richly ornamented cap worn by each 
of the members, — " Holiness to the Lord ; " 
and with all the fervor of his characteristic 
eloquence, he pressed the sacred motto, as the 
most open avowal that could be made of 
supreme regard for the glory of God, even a 
profession of devotion to his service, not infe- 
rior to that made in the Church of Christ. 
Reminding his brethren of the order that it 
was a time when the Lord was appearing in 
the beauty of his holiness, and the power 
of his grace, to convert sinners, he besought 
them to conform their lives to the inspired 
inscription, and give themselves to the work of 



3 2 



his salvation; and as this was the anniversary 
of the sainted Baptist, whose devotion to the 
Redeemer of men, in preparing his way, was 
so conspicuous, with great sincerity and ten- 
derness he implored them never more to wear 
this sacred emblem of devotion to the most 
High God, until, renouncing all sin, their hearts 
were filled with his love. The apostolic bold- 
ness and affectionate fervor of this appeal 
make the scene one of historic interest. It 
produced a profound impression, as we learn 
from the village papers of the day, and con- 
tributed very much to the progress of the revi- 
val. During the most of the summer, the pas- 
tor held three services in the church and a 
fourth at the court-house, each Sabbath, pre- 
senting to the crowds attracted by his elo- 
quence, as few men of his time were able to 
do, the sovereignty of God and the depend- 
ence of sinners, in harmony with the duty of 
immediate repentance, as drawn from the 
divine character and government, the nature 
and desert of sin, the frailty and uncertainty 
of human life, and the solemnities of the 



33 



future world. The first Sabbath in August of 
this summer was a notable day. Not less 
than 2,500 persons, it was thought, gathered in 
and about the church at the communion ser- 
vice, some coming a distance of twenty and 
even thirty miles. The house was densely 
crowded, and outside, wagons were arranged 
at the open windows, from which numbers 
looked in upon the solemn spectacle, as one hun- 
dred and forty-six stood up in these aisles to 
make profession of their faith in Christ, in 
presence of the emblems of his sufferings and 
death. A sacred awe rested on the multitude, 
and the stillness and order becoming such a 
solemnity reigned throughout the scene. One- 
tenth of the population put themselves that 
day on the Lord's side and with his people. 
Of this number, some had been known as infi- 
del in their sentiments, and others as profligate 
in their lives; but for the most part, it came 
from the substantial and vigorous element of 
society. The revival continued through the 
winter, and in a single year the membership of 

the church rose from 57 to 246, 

5 



34 



It was in connection with this revival, that 
Sunday schools had their origin in Auburn. 
An association was formed Nov. 2 2d, 1817, 
after the Saturday evening lecture, with a 
board of managers to visit the families, pro- 
cure books, and arrange a suitable system of 
instruction. Three schools were opened the 
following winter, one for boys, of 101 schol- 
ars, in the brick building still standing at 
the corner of North and Market streets; one 
for girls, of 78 scholars, in the long room, and 
a third for the colored people, then excluded 
from the district school, in a log house near 
where the prison now stands. This school of 
35 scholars was under the superintendence of 
Henry Amerman, who had recently been or- 
dained aii elder, and, as one of the trustees of 
the district, had been out- voted in his attempt 
to secure for the colored people the privileges 
of the common school. He was associated in 
this philanthropic work with Richard Steel, 
then a young man from the First Church of 
Troy, come in good time to catch the revival 
tlame, and ready now, as then, to do any work 



35 



for Christ and the souls of men. Indeed, it 
was the success which had attended a similar 
effort in Troy, that suggested the school here 
for this class ; and so far as I have been able 
to find, the first interest in the general move- 
ment already noticed was awakened on behalf 
of the colored people. The children in the 
several schools, besides committing to memory 
Scripture verses and select hymns, were taught 
the catechism, the Lord's prayer, the creed and 
the ten commandments. The charities of the 
association, moreover, were dispensed with ju- 
dicious economy. Each school had its wardrobe 
for the poorer children, who were allowed to 
wear the furnished suit of clothes only in school 
hours. In their report for the first year, the 
managers express their gratification at the im- 
provement made, and the cheering success of 
the enterprise. It was some ten years after, 
that the Sabbath school was organized in the 
Auburn prison, the first in any penal insti- 
tution in America, if not in the world. We 
may not undertake to trace the history of our 
own Sabbath school, so interwoven is it with 



3& 



that of the congregation. There is this notice- 
able fact, however, that with rare exceptions, 
those who are kept under its influence through 
its several grades of instruction, and are faith- 
ful in their attendance, come into the church 
early in life, and often from homes entirely 
destitute of religious influence. A goodly 
number of its pupils have entered the Chris- 
tian ministry, eight of whom have been, or are 
still foreign missionaries. Those who have 
held the office of superintendent, it is be- 
lieved, are all living, but one. They are Henry 
Amerman, Richard Steel, Philos G. Cook, 
Frederick H. Brown, Henry Ivison, Sylvester 
Willard, the latter for a period of fifteen years ? 
and more recently William E. Hughitt and S. 
Hall Morris. The present superintendent is 
Richard S. Holmes. 

It was about this time, the year 1818, that 
Dr. Lansing projected j)lans for the establish- 
ment of the Auburn Theological Seminary. 
As early as 1812, while at Onondaga, he had 
sought the approbation of the Presbyteries in 
this region, for a similar institution to be lo- 



37 



cated at that place. The movement here was 
a renewal of that project. After consulting 
with leading members of the congregation, who 
entered heartily into his views, the way was 
prepared for the action of the Synod of Ge- 
neva, at its stated meeting here in 1819, which 
organized, and after no little discussion located 
the seminary on this ground. The buildings 
were commenced the following year. The eli- 
gible lot, embracing ten acres, was the gift 
of John H. Hardenburgh, whose unassuming 
beneficence in this, and other good deeds, per- 
petuate in honor the name indelibly associated 
with the origin of the town. Something more 
than $1.4,000 from other members of the con- 
gregation, two years only after the building of 
the church, attest its liberal and enlightened 
policy in advancing the kingdom of Christ. 
It is a pleasant coincidence, to say the least, 
that the first professors selected for the infant 
institution should have come from New Jersey, 
the State which gave the first missionaries that 
visited this field when a wilderness. Dr. Henry 
Mills came earliest, and survived both his com- 



38 



peers, Richards and Perrine. It will be the 
privilege of the historian of the seminary, now 
approaching its semi-centennial anniversary, to 
speak in becoming terms of their work, in 
raising the institution to the position it has so 
long maintained in the confidence of the Church 
at large ; but it is ours to recall with gratitude 
and veneration the legacy which, as a people r 
we share in the memory of these great and 
good men. Dr. Lansing, notwithstanding his 
multiplied pastoral duties, served the semi- 
nary as its financial agent, until he had pro- 
cured for its funds, from various sources and 
modes of contribution, more than one hundred 
thousand dollars. He also occupied for a while, 
without compensation, the chair of sacred rheto- 
ric. The ties of sympathy, thus formed be- 
tween this church and the seminary, have only 
strengthened with time. In the recent addi- 
tion to the professorship fund, of $40,000, 
one-half of the sum was from members of this 
congregation, the two largest subscriptions 
being those of Sylvester Willard and Theodore 
P. Case, of $5,000 each, in recognition of which 



39 



two of the halls of the institution hear their 
respective names. The relation has been fortu- 
nate in many ways. It has not only served to 
give the church reputation abroad, but has 
inured greatly to its spiritual advantage. At 
the same time, we may hope it has done some- 
thing to mould the piety and direct the aims 
of those who have gone from the institution, to 
preach the gospel throughout the world. 

During the year 1-819, fifty members were 
added to the church. In 1820, there was an- 
other accession of ninety-five; and in 1821 the 
still larger addition of one hundred and fifteen. 
Among thos^e who made profession of their 
faith within this period, I recognize only here 
and there a name among the living, as Nehe- 
miah Hoyt, for many years an elder in the 
church of Meridian, which he aided to found, 
and more recently chosen to the same office in 
the Second Church of this city ; John Olm- 
stead, for many years the faithful treasurer of 
the society, and James S. Seymour, not less 
cherished in our spiritual household, than re- 
spected and known where financial integrity 



4 o 



is still held in honor. During the same period, 
Horace Hills, William Brown, and Conrad 
Ten Eyck came into the session ; also Lemuel 
Johnson, who soon after removed to Buffalo, 
and served the First Church there, for a 
number of years, in the same capacity. Such 
was the esteem in which this excellent man 
was held, that in anticipation of his removal 
to the West, the church elected him an elder, 
as a special mark of their confidence and sym- 
pathy in the midst of a reverse of fortune, 
which befel him through lack of integrity on 
the part of others. 

It was early in 1822, that Silas Hawley re- 
moved to Rochester, in time to take part in 
the formation of the Brick Church of that city. 
He was a tanner by trade, and though of de- 
fective education, was a man of strong native 
sense, industrious, frugal, and of active piety. 
The first religious movements here were very 
much under his guidance. A short time before 
his death, he made a brief visit to this city, and 
was present at a meeting of the session, then 
a larger body than the original membership of 



4i 



the church, which he had aided to organize, 
and served as one of its first trustees, its first 
deacon, and one of its first elders. 

The social meetings of the church continued 
to be held in the long room until the year 
1822, when the lecture room was finished. 
This was a modest structure, built of brick, 
and capable of seating about 175 persons. 
It was never enlarged, and was removed in 
the spring of 1868, to make room for the new 
chapel. The part it has taken in the spiritual 
prosperity of the church can hardly be esti- 
mated. Unattractive as it was to the eye, and 
uncomfortable as it became, memory revered 
it as the scene of prayer answered, and souls 
brought from death unto life. The next year fif- 
teen members were dismissed, to aid in forming 
a church at Grover Hill, afterward the Second 
Church of Scipio. It will be remembered that 
this was a part of Mr. Higgins' original parish. 
A church had already been formed at Cayuga, 
and one earlier still at Sennett, which took fif- 
teen members from the Aurelius church. Thus 
reduced in membership and circumscribed in 

6 



42 



territory by repeated subdivisions, the old 
church was re-organized in 1834, as that of 
Springport, and since removed to the village 
of Union Springs. Six years after, the present 
church at the Half Acre was formed from a 
colony that went out from our own congrega- 
tion ; and now eight Presbyterian churches 
occupy the territory included in the original 
parish of the First Church of Aurelius. 

In 1824, the session was enlarged by the 
ordination of Richard Steel, Jared Foot, and 
Stephen Hamlin, elders ; and it was this year 
that the first death occurred among its mem- 
bers, taking from the church one of its most 
esteemed and efficient officers. I allude to Con- 
rad Ten Eyck, of whom his pastor could say 
that he was a pattern to all in the intercourse 
of life, loving the social circle, where prayer 
and religious conversation could be freely in- 
dulged, and devoted in seeking out the poor 
of Christ's nock, and ministering to their neces- 
sities. With a mind of more than ordinary 
strength and culture, and a disposition marked 
by great kindness, he exercised his office with 



43 



wisdom and prudence, and gave his whole in- 
fluence to promote the peace and purity of the 
church. In the year 1827, Theodore Spencer, 
Clark B. Hotchkiss, Eseck C. Bradford, Myron 
C. Heed, and Erastus Pease were added to the 
session, which had the same year lost two of 
its members by removal of residence, Jared 
Foot and Henry Amerman. The latter is still 
living — the only survivor of the little com- 
pany that first met for religious worship in the 
red school-house. This venerable man, whose 
recollections of the times, in which he bore a 
prominent part, remain unimpaired, now re- 
sides in the neighboring town of Brutus, en- 
joying the retirement of a serene and cheerful 
old age 

The pastorate of Dr. Lansing covers a period 
of twelve years and three months, in which 
there was a succession of revivals with scarcely 
an interval of rest. They followed each other 
like showers in summer time, increasing the 
church in spiritual strength and numbers, and 
giving it prominence throughout the country, 
as one greatly favored of God. The whole 



44 



number added, during the time, was seven hun- 
dred and twenty-six, about one-third of whom 
came from other churches. With the excep- 
tion of the last of this series of revivals, which 
occurred in 1826, in connection with the preach- 
ing of Charles G. Finney, then coming into 
the foremost rank of evangelists, they were the 
immediate result of pastoral labor. 

In 1827 Dr. Lansing received a call from the 
First Church of Utica ; but the Presbytery 
withheld their consent. The call was twice 
renewed, and was at length accepted, June 
16th, 1829. This separation from a people, 
to whom he was bound by so many cords 
of social tenderness and Christian affection, 
was the most painful act of his public life. 
The congregation had resisted it for nearly 
two years, and yielded at length only to the 
consideration, that a change of place would 
afford needed relief from the constant and 
excessive labors of this position. 

His ministry of four years in Utica brought a 
rich blessing to that and neighboring churches. 
He then removed to New York, and built up 



45. 



the Houston Street Church, commencing with 
thirty-five young people, and leaving it with 
three hundred and eighty-live members. He 
returned to this city with impaired health in 
1844, supplying this pulpit for a year during 
the illness of the pastor, and laboring as he 
had strength in adjacent places, in his favorite 
work of promoting revivals of religion. In 
1848, he became the first pastor of the Clinton 
Avenue Church, Brooklyn, where his ministry 
was crowned with the erection of the imposing 
edifice, which is now one of the ornaments of 
that city of churches. He died at Walnut 
Hills, Ohio, March 19th, 1857, aged seventy-two 
years. He was buried with his fathers, in the 
Golden Hill cemetery near Lansingburgh, his 
native place, from which, fifty years before, he 
had gone forth bearing a name of ancient and 
honored lineage, and with advantages of men- 
tal and social culture that wealth affords, to 
serve the Church of Christ, as one of her pio- 
neer missionaries, and win a fame better than 
of ancestral honors, and gather riches more 
durable than of landed estates. The secret of 



46 



his success was not so much in his gifts, great 
though they were, as in his entire and enthusi- 
astic consecration of himself to the direct and 
spiritual aims of the gospel ministry. With 
an ardent nature, and tastes which in youth 
sought gratification among the gay and aristo- 
cratic, preaching to save souls became his pas- 
sion, and the humble and devout of Christ's 
fold his delight. From the moment of his 
conversion, in the great revival of 1802, in 
Yale College, from which he graduated in the 
class with John C. Calhoun, he turned his 
back for ever upon the avenues of worldly 
ambition, and sought the honor that cometh 
from God only. His soul was in his voice and 
whole manner, whether he prayed, or preached, 
or read a hymn. He was gentle and loving 
as a child, winning the young to his confi- 
dence, while there was born in him a courage 
and spirit of command, that would have led a 
charge in battle. He was by no means a sen- 
sational preacher ; neither did he tolerate the 
idea, that a revival could be forced by special 
means, though no bishop ever kept more vigi- 



47 



lant watch for the signs of its coming. He 
had faith in God, and in the power of the 
truth, and the work of the Spirit ; and this it 
was that made his ministry here, and wherever 
he went, so efficient. 

A year elapsed after Dr. Lansing left, during 
which the pulpit was supplied by the profes- 
sors of the Theological Seminary, when a call 
was extended to Rev. Jo si ah Hopkins, of New 
Haven, Vt. He was installed September 28th, 
1830. Dr. Wisner preached the sermon. The 
church edifice had recently been lengthened 
by the addition, or rather insertion of eighteen 
feet, which improved its proportions, at the 
same time that it gave the needed room. It 
was accomplished with equal economy and suc- 
cess, by dividing the building in the center, thus 
preserving intact the elaborate architecture of 
the two ends. The work was under the charge 
of Deacon John I. Hagaman, a skillful archi- 
tect, who did much of the additional carving 
with his own hand. Incipient steps had also 
been taken to form a second congregation. 
Whatever was thought then of the reasons 



4 8 



which led to this movement, or of its ne- 
cessity at that particular juncture, results 
show it to have been timely and judicious. 
There was an honest difference of judg- 
ment, not confined to this locality, as to 
measures, and, to some extent, the interpre- 
tation of doctrine, with an equally strong 
attachment to the formulas and usages of the 
Presbyterian Church. The best thing was 
done ; and happily nothing occurred, which 
now needs vindication or apology, in the origin 
of the movement that led to the organiza- 
tion of the Second Church, with sixty-six mem- 
bers, dismissed from this church for that pur- 
pose. Both have found ample room in which 
to work, and have, in a common faith and 
order, wrought together amid revival scenes, 
which have continued to characterize this com- 
munity. 

The pastorate of Dr. Hopkins began with 
a membership thus reduced, the congrega- 
ton proportionately lessened, and the church- 
edifice enlarged to its present size, among a 
population of a little more than 3,000, and 



49 



supplied with five churches. But within one 
year from the date of his installation, two 
hundred and thirty-five were added to this 
church, nearly four times the number it had 
given to form the Second Church, which with- 
in the same period received an addition of 
about an hundred members. The next year 
seventy more were admitted to this church, 
still a larger number than had gone out from 
it two years before, to plant another church of 
Christ ; and this, too, for a population scarcely 
one-fifth as numerous as that which surrounds 
us to-day. This I regard as one of the most 
instructive facts in our history. " There is that 
scattereth and yet increaseth." 

The great revival of 1831, of which these 
were some of the fruits here, was not restricted 
to place or measures. It filled the land with 
joy, and the churches not visited by the gracious 
baptism were the exceptions. In some locali- 
ties, as in this, evangelists were employed ; but 
similar results, elsewhere, attended the ordi- 
nary means of grace. It was truly a harvest 

season, in which the patient sower and the 
7 



50 



zealous reaper rejoiced together. It so oc- 
curred here, that Mr. Finney, whose labors, six 
years before, had left such a favorable impres- 
sion, was passing through the village front 
Rochester, where an extensive revival had 
accompanied his preaching, when he was in- 
duced, at the earnest solicitation of the people, 
and the indications of an incipient revival, to 
change his plans and remain. He was then 
in the prime of life and at the height of his 
fame. As a preacher of the law, in the breadth 
of its requirement and terror of its penalty, he 
was without a rival. The glance of his full 
sharp eye and the tones of his commanding 
voice were in keeping with the sterner aspects 
of truth, which he never failed to present with 
searching discrimination and powerful effect. 
The opposition was great, bnt the work went 
on with resistless energy. During his stay of 
about two months. Mr. Finney preached in no 
other pulpit than this, but the results were by 
no means limited to this congregation. Many, 
who ascribed their conversion to his instru- 
mentalitv, united with other churches in the 



5 1 



village and vicinity; and now, after a genera- 
tion has passed, and with it the prejudice of the 
time, there can be no question of the service 
then rendered to the cause of vital religion, 
It is not necessary to ask the few who re- 
main to speak of those days ; the silent and 
impartial pages of our church register furnish 
abundant testimony to the stability and great 
value of the accession of 1831. And it is only 
the simple truth of history to say, that next to 
the cherished names of Lansing and Hopkins, 
in the earlier memories of this church, stands 
that of Charles G. Finney. 

In March, 1832, James S. Seymour was or* 
dained an elder to fill the vacancy occasioned 
by the death of John Oliphant, which occurred 
the previous winter. Father Oliphant, as he 
was familiarly called, was a native of the north 
of England, and after residing some years in 
London, came to this place in the autumn of 
1811, and for a while attended the services of 
the Episcopal church, to which he had been 
most accustomed. He became a member of 
this church on profession of his faith, in 1813, 



5 2 



and a year after, was chosen as one of its first 
elders. He was a man of simple habit, a tailor 
by occupation, of scrupulous integrity and ot 
good report among his neighbors. He was 
greatly beloved and trusted in the church, as 
one of the most judicious and godly of its 
spiritual officers. The poor and afflicted were 
familiar with his kindness and sympathy. 
His experience of divine things attained un- 
common clearness and depth, and his habitual 
frame was unworldly and spiritual. He had 
rare gifts, joined with a humility which ever 
led him to regard himself as the least of his 
brethren. He has left the deep impress of 
his influence upon the church he loved so well, 
both in word and life ; and the estimate in 
which he was held can hardly be exaggerated. 
While lingering on the verge of life, and cer- 
tified, in his own impressions, of the very day he 
was to depart, his anxiety that nothing should 
be left undone by him, for the good of others, 
led him to prepare addresses to his fellow- 
members of the session, to the church and his 
unconverted neighbors, to be read at his fune- 



53 



ral. The request was complied with, and gave 
a singular impressiveness to the occasion, in 
the presence of a large concourse of citizens. 

There were other general revivals occurring 
in 1833, 1838, and 184(1, with large additions, 
and considerable increase in the intervening 
years. 

This may be styled the era of evangelism 
in our history. After Mr. Finney, came Jede> 
diah Burchard, whose well-known methods had 
invoked severe criticism in other places, and 
been attended with hiodi excitement. It must 
be said, however, that at no previous time 
had there been such thorough and systematic 
preparation for united effort in the use of 
whatever instrumentality, it might be deemed 
best to employ. Indeed, before Mr. Burchard 
came, and with scarcely any knowledge of his 
peculiarities, there was a mutual pledge of the 
members of the church to work together with* 
out complaint of, or to one another, desirous 
only that the greatest good should be secured. 
The eccentricities of the preacher did no 
harm, while doubtless many were reached and 



54 

saved by the truth, who otherwise might have 
remained indifferent ; and it is the testimony 
of the time, that as large a number from the 
adjacent towns, drawn to the meetings, were 
converted, as united with this church. Mr. 
Burchard was followed five years after by Mr. 
Avery, deemed more judicious, and judged by 
the numbers who then professed hope in 
Christ, not less effective. Mr. Orton, who 
seems to have combined in an excellent degree 
the zeal of the evangelist with the discretion 
of the pastor, is also remembered with grati- 
• tude for his useful labors. But notwithstand- 
ing the diversity of gifts so manifest in these 
several servants of God, and the conflicting 
judgments formed of their modes of work, at 
the time, there was a remarkable uniformity of 
result, not less in the spiritual, than in the 
numerical increase brought to the church. 
What that result might have been, under the 
stated ministrations of a less instructive and 
more impulsive teacher and guide, we may not 
conjecture. The fact remains, that this church 
owes to those palmy days of its increase much 



55 



of its character and influence, its sinew and 
strength, for a generation. There may have 
been things done not desirable, and certainly 
not to be repeated ; but the truth abides that 
God uses varied instruments to advance his 
kingdom, and so orders the issue that " Wis- 
dom is justified of all her children." 

It was during these years that the Presby- 
terian Church throughout the country was 
agitated with questions of doctrine and disci- 
pline, which resulted in the famous exscinding 
acts of 1837. That history is too well known 
for repetition, and it is referred to now, be- * 
cause the Convention, in which the exscinded 
portion took on form and new life, was held in 
this house, giving it historical associations wor- 
thy of record. The convention met, August 
17th, 1837, and was composed of one hundred 
and fifty-nine commissioners, clerical and lay, 
representing forty-seven Presbyteries. The ven- 
erable Dr. Richards presided. Drs. Patten and 
McAuley, of New York, and Hillyer of New 
Jersey, and Albert Barnes, from Philadelphia, 
were present, with their counsel and sympathy. 



Among the leading men of the bodfy were 
Drs. Lyman Beech er, Samuel H. Cox, Luther 
Halsey, Joseph Penny, then President of Ham- 
ilton College, and Judge Jessup, of Pennsyl- 
vania. The act of the General Assembly was 
declared to be unconstitutional and therefore 
void, and the judicatories, whose rights were 
thus invaded, were counselled to preserve the 
union and integrity of the church on the prin- 
ciples of good faith, brotherly kindness, and 
the constitution. A summary of doctrine, as; 
believed and maintained by the exscinded! 
portion,, was affirmed — the same that was so 
cordially endorsed by the last Old School 
Assembly — and the basis of the new organi- 
zation, in case separation should become inev- 
itable, was completed. 

The discussions were animated and pro- 
tracted, and when, on taking the vote, it was; 
found that the action was unanimous, business 
was suspended, and amid tears of joy the con- 
vention offered solemn thanks to God for the 
auspicious result. The crisis was safely passed. 
Thirty years have wrought their changes ; and 



57 



the severed branch, that then took new root, 
has "Town until its boughs have met and min- 
gled with those of tlie parent tree, adorned 
with the same foliage and bending with the 
same precious fruit. Reunion with reconcilia- 
tion has come ; and the indications are that 
scarcely will this house have been taken down, 
before we shall see our beloved Church made 
one again in form, as indeed it is one in name 
and doctrine, spirit, and life. 

Dr. Hopkins served the congregation for a 
period of nearly sixteen years, with character- 
istic fidelity and great acceptance. The church 
received, under his administration, nine hun- 
dred and seventeen members, five hundred 
and sixty-three of whom united on profession 
of their faith. The additional elders in his 
pastorate were Abijah Fitch, Theron L Pond, 
Cyrus Lyon, Nathaniel Lynch, and John S* 
Bartlett, in 1836: and, in 1843, Lewis Bailey, 
Joseph B. Hyde, Horace Hotchkiss, and Jede- 
diah Darrow. 

Father Hopkins is the .first of my prede- 
cessors, of whom I can speak from personal 

8 



58 



acquaintance. Neither brilliant in style nor 
attractive in manner, lie commanded attention 
by the clearness of his thought, and carried 
conviction by the force of his inexorable logic. 
His zeal for sound doctrine made him intoler- 
ant of error. He was never afraid of the 
truth ; but with this boldness in the gospel, he 
mingled a simplicity and kindness of heart, 
which disarmed prejudice and won the respect 
and good- will of the entire community. He 
was tall in person, rugged in feature, and of 
godly mien ; and when that smile, many of 
you remember, came from his heart to his face, 
and lit up his countenance, it beamed with the 
beauty of goodness. With a physical frame 
hardened by early toil and rustic habit, and a 
mental culture not common outside the advan- 
tages of a liberal education, he nevertheless 
sank under the burden of his protracted min- 
istry here, and was compelled to ask for a dis- 
solution of the pastoral relation, which was 
reluctantly acceded to by the congregation. 
He continued, however, as his broken health 
would permit, to preach for limited periods to 



59 



neighboring churches, in one of which he was 
successful in healing divisions, and in another, 
that of Springport, was permitted to witness 
a precious revival, when he retired to the 
Water Cure at Geneva, where he died, June 
21st, 1862, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. 
His remains were brought to this city, and 
after appropriate services in this house, were 
borne by the senior members of the session to 
the North street cemetery, where they now rest 
with those of Richards, Perrine, and Mills, amid 
the graves of many to whom he ministered in 
life, awaiting the resurrection of the just. 

The church had now outlived the genera- 
tion that formed it. Of its original members 
not one remained. Nearly seventeen hundred 
names had been enrolled on its register, more 
than twelve hundred of which were desig- 
nated as having been removed by letter, or as 
having departed this life. Some few had 
been excluded by discipline, and the number 
remaining in communion with the church was 
four hundred and forty-six. It had hitherto 
been under the ministry of men of large pre- 



i 



6a 



vious experience and widely known, but it now 
chose its third pastor, Henry A. Nelson, from 
the Theological Seminary, in which he was 
about finishing his preparatory studies, and he 
was installed, July 2<>th, 1846,, within a month 
after his graduation. The relation then formed, 
and which continued for ten years, proved in 
some important particulars a transition period 
in the life of the church, in which, with some 
change of method in adminstration, all that 
was of permanent value was retained. It be- 
came the habit to look for enlargement in con- 
nection with the regular pastoral ministration 
and its allied agencies, rather than to special 
efforts, which had characterized some previous 
years. At no time had there been such sys- 
tem and organization in the use of the pecu- 
liar facilities afforded by our admirable eccle- 
siastical polity, to develop the efficiency of the 
church. To aid the pastor in his work of 
supervision, the whole membership was ar- 
ranged into twelve classes, the number of 
ruling elders, and each class put in special 
charge of a single elder. At the same time the 



* 



6i 



term of service of the elders, now divided into 
four classes,- was limited to three years for each 
class, unless rechosen at the annual meeting. 
This arrangement was intended to bring the 
church and its spiritual rulers into more imme- 
diate sympathy ; and it is worthy of note, 
that in the twenty years since this measure 
was adopted, in no instance has the church 
failed to reaffirm its original choice. Six of 
the present members of the session were or- 
dained to their office under Dr. Nelson's minis- 
try, and eleven in all ; viz : in 1848, Sylvester 
Willard, Joseph Clary, Henry H. Cooley, Dan- 
iel Hewson, Thomas M. Hunt ; in 1853, George 
Crocker, Israel F. Terrill, Harmon Woodruff, 
Franklin L. Griswold ; and in 1854, James 
Hyde and George Underwood. A similar ar- 
rangement pertains to the functions of the 
deacons in their delicate and most Christian 
ministry to the poor. As another feature, and 
as a valuable educational influence, the estab- 
lishment of the Parish Library deserves men- 
tion, now numbering over twelve hundred 
volumes. 



62 



In 1850, our present bell, with whose plea- 
sant tones and faithful calls to the house of 
prayer we have become familiar, took the 
place of the old one, whose last work was to 
sound an alarm of fire ; and two or three years 
afterward, the house itself, which had begun 
to wear a neglected look, was thoroughly reno- 
vated in appearance, at a cost of about $1,200, 

The accessions to the church during Dr. Neb 
son's pastorate number three hundred and 
ninety-seven. There was no very large in- 
crease at any one time, but a .steady and 
healthy growth, with entire harmony and a 
mutual confidence and esteem, alike honorable 
to pastor and people. But he was needed in 
a more difficult and prominent position, and 
the congregation acknowledged the claim, 
which was pressed with becoming earnestness. 
Dr.. Nelson was called, in 1856, to the First 
Church of St. Louis, to fill the place of the 
lamented Bullard ; and I only say what is well 
known, that to the influence of no one man is 
it more due, that Missouri finally yielded to 
the measure of voluntary emancipation, and 



:6s 



maintained, as a Border State, her loyal atti- 
tude during the fearful years of the country's 
struggle with rebellion. 

I have thus endeavored to trace the annals 
of the congregation under the successive pas- 
torates of my predecessors. The twelve years 
that remain form a considerable, and in some 
regards, a critical period in its progress, as also 
in the life of the nation. Its scenes are too 
vivid in the memories of the living to be re- 
hearsed, or even referred to on this occasion, 
except for the sake of completing this historical 
record. The present pastor was installed Nov- 
ember 5th, 1857. The commanding position 
of the church and the probabilities, then quite 
strong, that it had reached its limit of growth, 
with the fact that the city itself had begun to 
decline in population, were discouraging cir- 
cumstances. Moreover, the trade and finance 
of the country were under a cloud. Its indus- 
trial and political interests were alike unsettled, 
and its future gloomy and portentous. But 
before the year 1857 closed, there were signs 
of spiritual good, and the year 1858 opened 



64 



with the promise of what proved the most 
general and wide-spread revival of religion 
which had visited this or any other land. It 
was the preparation of the country for the 
tierce political struggle of 1860, which in- 
volved principles that had been in antagonism 
from the foundation of the republic, and for 
the conflict of arms which followed, convulsing 
the nation in terror and blood. The addi- 
tions to our communion during this year were 
seventy-six. 

In April, 1861, came the war, when as a con- 
gregation we recognized the relations of relisr* 
ion to patriotism, both in the utterances of the 
pulpit, and in our meetings for conference and 
prayer. The first regiment of volunteers re- 
cruited here, and afterward known as the 
kt Old Nineteenth, 11 assembled in this house, 
the Sabbath before leaving for the field, and 
were addressed by the pastor from the words, 
" Be strong and of good courage, and let us 
play the men for our people and the cities ot 
our God." In the several regiments raised 
in this vicinity, this congregation was repre- 



&5 



sented by some of our active church mem- 
bers and most promising young men. In 
the spring of 1862, after two years' experience 
of the war, another revival occurred, the sub- 
jects of which were chiefly among the young, 
and resulted in fifty-eight additions to our 
membership. 

The return of peace found the congregation 
strong, united, and prosperous. Its loyal atti- 
tude during the war, with entire freedom in 
the pulpit to adapt the truth to every phase 
of the conflict, had been maintained without 
discord or disaffection. The discipline of the 
war, with the illustrations it furnished of the 
vital doctrines of the gospel, had wrought in 
the popular mind a deep conviction of the di- 
vine sovereignty and human dependence. If as 
citizens we should be loyal to the Government, 
as men we should be loyal to God. Submis- 
sion to his government, the sin of rebellion, 
the requirements of justice, and reconciliation 
alone through the blood of the cross, were 
truths with which you had become familiar, 

not as abstract doctrines, but as things of prac- 
9 



66 



tieal and. pressing consequence ; and the year 
1866 brought the blessed harvest, the seed of 
which had been sown in tears. Old and young- 
alike yielded to the love and claims of Christ r 
and one hundred and one were added to our 
communion, the largest accession, in any one 
year, since the great awakening of 1831. 

The entire number that have entered into 
covenant with this church, from the first, is 
twenty-five hundred and ninety-six. Of this 
number, fourteen hundred and forty-seven 
joined on profession of their faith, and eleven 
hundred and forty-nine by certificate. There 
have left with letters to churches in other 
places, or have deceased, nearly two thousand, 
an average yearly draft upon our numbers of 
thirty-five ; showing that the church must 
have renewed its average membership once in 
about every ten years, to maintain its position, 
indeed its existence The additions of the last 
eleven years are four hundred and forty- seven. 
Sixty-eight of its members have entered the 
Christian ministry, thirteen of whom appear 
on our roll as having united on examination, 



&7 



and the others as having brought letters from 
their respective churches, in most instances, 
after entering the Theological Seminary. He- 
man Norton and Morris Barton were among 
the converts in the revival of 1817. Both, 
after filling spheres of large and varied useful- 
ness, have entered into their rest, Of those 
who were converted while members of the 
Sabbath School, and subsequently devoted 
themselves to the work of foreign missions, we 
have the names of Dibble, of the Sandwich 
Islands ; Pease, of the island of Cyprus ; Brad- 
ley, of Siam ; and Steel, of Madura. One has 
entered the ministry from the eldership, Theo- 
dore Spencer, now of Utica, and one, Thomas 
B. Hudson, of North East, Pa., after serving 
the church as a deacon. The whole list, too 
large for enumeration, embraces many of 
choice spirit and approved fidelity in the 
Master's work in widely scattered fields of 
labor. 

The church has had thirty-nine elders, fif- 
teen of whom have removed their residence, 
and ten died while in office. Three, viz., 



68 



Albert H. Goss, Charles A. Lee, and Henry J. 
Sartwell, were ordained under the present pas- 
torate. The session has ever enjoyed the confi- 
dence of the whole body of its constituency, 
and never more than in times when most tried 
by cases of discipline that called for the exer- 
cise of wisdom and firmness. In no instance 
from the first, has an appeal been taken from 
its decisions, and in none has a conclusion been 
reached by a divided vote. Of the ten who 
have died, besides the names of Oliphant and 
Ten Eyck, we cannot fail to recall to-day those 
of Bartlett and Hyde, Reed and Darrow, Ham- 
lin and Hunt, Clary and Underwood, men of 
varied gifts and graces, but alike dear to 
memory. 

Of the thirty-three deacons who have min- 
istered sympathy and help to Christ's poor 
among us, seventeen have at different times 
been transferred to the bench of elders. None 
have died while in this office ; and of the six 
that remain, all but one received ordination at 
my hands. Those who have held the office, 
and not already mentioned in connection with 



6 9 



the eldership, are Palmer Holley, John I. 
Hagaman, Albert Walcott, John R. Hopkins, 
Gilbert M. Milligan, James B. Wilson, Charles 
Hall, Stephen Ball, Joseph G. Downer, Thomas 
B. Hudson, Isaac Cooper. The present board 
consists of Eliphalet F. Putnam, Richard ,H. 
Bloom, Charles P. Williams, Haverly Brooks, 
Mortimer L. Browne, and James Seymour, Jr. 

I could also speak of the ability and scrupu- 
lous care with which the secular affairs of the 
congregation have been conducted by its board 
of Trustees. It is a responsible and often per- 
plexing task to provide for " the outward busi- 
ness of the house of God," requiring not only 
financial experience, but a delicate appreciation 
of spiritual interests, which otherwise might re- 
ceive detriment. I mention such sterling names 
as David Hyde, and John H. Beach, of the 
past generation, the more freely, as representa- 
tives of the class of men who, though not of its 
membership, have given to the church, up to 
the present time, their gratuitous and inval- 
uable services. 

The praises of the sanctuary have been 



7° 



led by sucli men as Thomas Hastings and 
Deacon Rollo, in days when the choir ex- 
tended nearly half around the galleries ; and 
subsequently by William H. Brown, Henry 
Ivison, and James R. Cox, the latter for a 
period of more than twenty years. 

The expenditures of the society for salaries, 
building, repairs, etc., exclusive of the present 
outlay on the new edifice, fall somewhat short 
of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. 
The benevolent contributions, for the last 
twelve years, have reached an average of four 
thousand dollars a year, and from the begin- 
ning will not differ much from the aggregate 
cost to the society of sustaining religion at 
home. These are small figures, compared with 
what has been accomplished, less even than 
the capital invested in single secular enter- 
prises in our own city. 

But I will not detain you longer. At best, 
much that belongs to the history of which this 
is a mere sketch must remain unwritten. It 
is not therefore lost. The scenes which have 
made this house so memorable, and this church 



7 1 



so honored of God and loved of men, have their 
imperishable record in the hearts of many wit- 
nesses. The silent and constant influence of 
such an organization in its own locality on 
individual mind and destiny, on the family, to 
which in form and purpose it is nearly allied, 
on the rise and growth, the social and business 
relations, the morals and whole character of 
the community, may not be fully appreciated, 
but can never be ignored. Its infirmities, mis- 
takes, and shortcomings are forgotten as of no 
account against the fact that it has stood for 
the defense of sound piety and pure morality, 
giving timely and courageous testimony against 
social evils and organic sins, and fostering the 
graces and activities of the best type of Chris- 
tianity, as generations have come and gone. 
It has, all this while, been sending out its 
members, not a few of whom have been instru- 
mental in starting new churches or giving 
help and guidance to such as were yet in their 
infancy, and some of whom have given them- 
selves to the work of the Christian ministry in 
our own country and in heathen lands, until 



7 2 



its influence is felt round the world. Results 
like these cannot he measured. That little 
band of six women and three men, who, fifty- 
eight years ago, put in motion this train of 
influences, though never so sanguine, could not 
have anticipated what, to-day, we review with 
gratitude and wonder. Truly, they did their 
work well, and this is their reward. They 
started on the right foundation, and " builded 
better than they knew." They planted the 
true seed, and now behold the increase God 
has given in multiplied harvests. This is 
God's building ; this is God's husbandry. One 
law has marked its progress, through various 
epochs — -new instruments and new methods, 
but one foundation, and that Jesus Christ — 
different plantings, but all of the good seed, 
which is the word of God. What, then, if 
these beginnings had been less spiritual and 
more tolerant of error or formalism, leaving 
them to take early and exclusive root on this 
favored ground ! Even with the same creed 
and church order, how meager and barren, 
comparatively, would have been our history 



73 



as a people, had it not been for that series of 
revivals of religion, which commenced with 
the erection of this house of the Lord, and 
now invest it with hallowed interest. Some 
of yon remember those days of fervid zeal, 
when the uusympathizing were wont to call it 
the Old Furnace, and indeed at times the 
spiritual temperature did come to melting 
heat ; but such are the fires in which char- 
acter is smelted of its dross, and from which 
it is moulded into forms of grace and power. 
God grant that his word as here, spoken may 
never cease to be " as the fire and the hammer 
that breaketh the rock in pieces ; " and may 
the gracious showers which have made this 
spot like a " well watered garden " never give 
place to spiritual drought and barrenness ! 
With no blind adherence, however, to measures 
which have had their day, but with methods 
adapted to the times in which our lot is cast, 
and in harmony with the truth and the spirit of 
God, it is for us to accept anew the responsibili- 
ties thus imposed, to maintain the character and 

prestige of the church of our choice. It has 
10 



74 



new work to do, in common with the churches 
of our own and other names, for our growing 
city, and a vastly greater work than ever be- 
fore for our country, still expanding its territo- 
rial limits, and for the world now everywhere 
opened to the gospel. 

In leaving this venerable sanctuary, as no 
longer suited to the wants of the congregation, 
we accept the new and larger work before us. 
We yield up whatever attachments we may 
have to the material structure, for the sake of 
the spiritual house, which has made this all it 
is. to memory and affection. We leave behind 
no gift and no promise, nothing of all that has 
invested the place with its precious associa- 
tions. We take with us the same gospel of 
grace which has so long been preached within 
its walls : the same ordinances which have 
made it the center of holy attraction to multi- 
tudes ; the same simple and effective agencies 
so honored of the Holy Ghost in his convert- 
ing and sanctifying work. We do not leave 
this house as those who built it first entered 
it. few in number, a new organization with 



75 



no history, and struggling for its true position 
in a rapidly forming community ; but we leave 
it in the strength of numbers and character, 
and with a spiritual capital garnered from the 
toils and prayers, the faith and works, of two 
generations. Let us then go from the dear 
old house with gratitude for what has here 
been wrought, with humility and penitence 
for past failures and sins, with fresh courage 
to avow and maintain the doctrine and order 
vindicated by such results, and above all, in- 
voking the presence of the Saviour and Head 
of the Church to go with us. Then, indeed, 
will the new temple, which is to rise on this 
consecrated ground, be another house of the 
Lord ; another place hallowed and kept of 
Thee, O God, where, through coming ages, 
" one generation shall praise thy works to 
another, and shall declare thy mighty acts." 



NOTES. 



Page 1. — There were three services on the last Sabbath in the 
old church. The historical sermon was preached in the morning. 
In the afternoon, the Second and Central churches, with their pas- 
tors, united with the First Church in the Sacrament of the Lord's 
Supper. It was a delightful family re-union, and a season of 
Christian fellowship long to be remembered. Nine persons were 
admitted to the church on profession of their faith, reminding us 
of the precise number of which it was formed, fifty-eight years 
before. One of the number, an aged man, of seven t}^-nine years, 
was present when the house was dedicated, and has been a regular 
attendant upon its services for more than half a century. We were 
also permitted to welcome to the sealing ordinance a lad nine 
years of age, — a child of the covenant. 

The farewell meeting was held in the evening, the several con- 
gregations again uniting, as in the previous part of the day. The 
session had very appropriately extended an invitation to Rev. 
Henry A. Nelson, D.D., the only one of the former pastors of 
the church now living, to preach the last sermon in the old 
house ; but the special duties of his position in the Lane Theo- 
logical Seminary, to which he had been recently called, prevented 
his acceptance. His letter, written to the pastor, was read at an 
early stage of the exercises, and is here subjoined, with the omis- 
sion of a single paragraph, of more private interest : 



7 8 



"Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, O. 
February 27, 1869. 
H My Dear Bro : Can you guess what emotions, what memories,, 
and what hopes your letter, just received, stirs within me ? Yes, 
being a pastor, and pastor of that people,, longer now than I was ? 
you can. To preach the last sermon in that dear old church, the 
most beautiful structure, to my eyes, that they ever looked upon— 
in which I knelt to receive ' the laying- on of the hands of the 
Presbytery ; ' in which I first took upon my conscience the pasto- 
ral vows, and on my heart the sweet burden of the pastoral care ; 
in whose pulpit, for ten years, I weekly saw those hundreds of 
thoughtful and reverent faces upturned to mine ; at whose sac- 
ramental table I broke the bread and gave the cup, in the name of 
Christ, some sixty times; whose columns, and arches, and gal- 
leries, and aisles, and pulpit — with every line and leaf in all its 
profuse and elaborate carving, are imprinted ' in my mind's eye/ 
ineffaceably ; the very throbbing of whose wall behind me, at the 
strokes of its bell, made it seem alive ; that blessed old edifice now 
about to resound, for the last time, to the voice of a preacher, and 
ihe privilege offered to me, that it should be my voice ! Dear 
brother, I can think of no body of men who could offer me a 

privilege and an honor, which would be harder not to accept. 

******** 

" What memories of saintly men and women will throng you on 
that evening ! Men and women who have trod those aisles, and 
occupied those seats, and shared the life of that people ! Clary, 
and Underwood, and Bartlett, and Hyde, and Darrow, and Ham- 
lin, and Hunt, and Oliphant — Hopkins and Lansing — Mills and 
Perrine — and Oh, how many more — if less conspicuous, not less 
dear ! 

" Memories too of what scenes, solemn, thrilling, joyous, sacred ! 
Large companies crowding the space before the pulpit, taking the 



79 



vows of God upon them ; single individuals standing there alone, 
calm and determined, for the same purpose; coffins resting there 
amid tearful groups, for a few moments, and then reverently 
borne awaj r ; bridal companies bright and joyous, and full of hope 
— what memory can recall the full succession of pictures ? To 
me, I own, these special and less frequent scenes have less aggre- 
gate power than those more habitual, more quiet, more constant. 
The every Sabbath gathering, the groups meeting at the corner 
and turning in at the gates, the smiling yet serious faces moving 
through the lobby, the gradual and not slow filling of the tiers of 
pews, the measured strokes of the bell, the solemn peal of the 
organ, the reverent silence of prayer, the lifting up of voices in 
sacred song, the serious attention to the holy word, the quiet 
and thoughtful departure to so many homes, bearing away ' things 
new and old' dispensed from the divine treasures, and then the 
innumerable evidences that c help from the sanctuary and strength 
out of Zion ' had been vouchsafed to many spirits, and comfort and 
peace to many sorrowful or worried hearts — this continuous, tran- 
quil current of history, this steady, warm, blessed life of a people, 
sharing the experiences of such a sanctuary— is there anything 
else like it outside of the city in which the fullness of God's lumin- 
ous presence leaves no need of sun or of temple ? 

" May you, my brother, and that dear people, take your leave of 
that holy house, with God's most gracious benediction. May the 
ample and more durable structure that is to replace it, have as 
precious and a longer history. From foundation to top-stone may 
it all ' be God's.' 1 May its roof shelter many generations of wor- 
shippers ; and may its walls and its towers be standing when the 
earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord." 

Addresses, in full sympathy with the occasion, were made by 
Rev. Samuel W. Boardman, pastor of the Second Church, Prof. Ed- 
win Hall, D.D., and Prof. Samuel M. Hopkins, D.D., of the Theolo- 



80 



gical Seminary. A letter was a]°o read from Prof. J. B. Condit, 
D.D., regretting his unavoidaole absence from the city on this 
day, and concluding as follows : 

" What a da3^ it will be to yon and the people of your charge. 
— a day of mingled emotions, of sadness and of thanksgiving to 
God. In some sense there will be a concentration of the power 
that has been acting on mind within the walls of that edifice for 
fifty years. My prayer is, that God will be with you, to strengthen 
and comfort you, when you utter your last words in that hal- 
lowed sanctuary ; and that he will encompass that utterance, as 
it shall interpret and enforce the lessons of the solemn hour, with 
an influence that shall bring to a decision for Christ the many 
who have been long standing at the very door of the kingdom. 

"Then before those walls are taken down, the record can be 
made of this Zion concerning such : ' This and that man was 
born in her. The Lord shall count, when he writeth up the peo- 
ple, that this man was bom there" " 

Prayers were offered by the aged men who remembered " the 
former days ;" and, after a few remarks by the pastor, the congre- 
gation, led by the choir, sang the hymn, 

" Jerusalem, my happy home," 
and were dismissed with the apostolic benediction. 

The building has since been carefully taken down, with a view 
to its re-construction, in somewhat diminished proportions, but 
preserving its general appearance, at the junction of Franklin 
and Capitol streets, on a lot the gift of James S. Seymour, Esq. 
It is intended for the use of a church enterprise, established in that 
part of the city some two years since, and in a neighborhood whose 
population outnumbers that of the entire village when the church 
was first built, 

Page 6. — The Owasco colony made a temporary settlement near 



8i 



the Cayuga Lake, about a mile and a half north-west from Lud- 
lowville, now in the town of Lansing, Tompkins Co , N. Y., he- 
fore fixing on their permanent location. They left Gettysburgh 
on the 30th of April, 1793, and came to the end of their tedious 
journey on the 4th of July, having been compelled, portions of 
the way, to open a road through the forest, The church they 
built at Owasco in the summer of 1797 was of hewn logs, with 
slab seats, and galleries on three sides. Its size was 25 by 30 feet, 
and was in use until 1815, the year before the great revival in the 
parish, under the ministry of Pev. Conrad Ten Eyck, when 351 
were added in a single year to the two churches of Owasco and 
Sand Beach, then under one pastorate. An account of this revi- 
val was extensively published at the time, and excited attention 
throughout the country. 

Page 12. — The Centre House, so often referred to in the earlier 
annals of the congregation, stood on Genesee street, near the junc- 
tion with Market street, and was first kept by David Horner, and 
afterwards by Henry Amerman. The building was removed 
some years since to Fulton street, nearly opposite School House 
No. 1, and re-fitted into an attractive private residence, with its 
original size and proportions preserved, and is now owned and oc- 
cupied by William Laraey, Esq. 

Page 14. — Major Van Valkenburgh, who presided at the meet- 
ing for the formation of the Society, was a patriot of the Revo- 
lution, having been in the battle of Bunker Hill, and several of 
the severest engagements of the War. He resided about two 
miles east of the village, on lands received for his military servi- 
ces, and subsequently divided into farms, which were occupied by 
his sons. His residence was the double brick house still standing 
on the Walker farm. In 1817 he became a member of the Church 

on profession of his faith, which he honored by a well-ordered 
11 



82 



and consistent life. Hon. R. H. Van Valkc nburgh, the present 
U. S. Minister to Japan, is his grandson. 

Page 27. — The following articles from the village press, reflect 
ing the spirit of the time, will be read with interest: 

[From the " Advocate of the People," Nov. 6. 1816.] 

" The new church uow completing in this village by the Presby- 
terian congregation, reflects high honor on its projectors and pa- 
trons, and is certainly a great ornament to the village of Auburn. 
It is also acknowledged by every stranger and traveler with whom 
we have conversed, to be one of the most elegant buildings, as a 
church, of any in the state. The great bell intended for this edi- 
fice, and which weighs 1,250 pounds, was on Saturday last raised 
and hung in its proper position, without accident. The spot on 
which this stately pile now stands, with the surrounding country, 
was, twenty-two or twenty-three years ago, covered with immense 
forests. * * * We understand this building has been thor- 
oughly viewed by the Hon. Simeon De Witt, the Surveyor-Gen- 
eral of the State, who pronounced it the best piece of architecture 
of the Corinthian order, within his knowledge. The principal 
builder, we are informed, is Mr. Lawrence White, formerly of 
New York, whose promptitude and skill in workmanship have 
done honor to his profession, and he certainly deserves the highest 
commendation which an approving public can bestow. * * * 
We sincerely wish it may become a place of general resort at all 
times when opened for Divine service, and that the congregation 
may have the felicity of procuring a Pastor who will be an or- 
nament to the station, and be the means of winning souls to the 
cause of his Divine Master." 

The " Advocate of the People " was published by Mr. H. C. 
Southwick, whose gift of a large and finely bound pulpit Bible 
was duly acknowiedged at the time by the trustees, as also by the 
pastor in his dedicatory sermon. 



83 



[From the '-Auburn Gazette.'" March 12. 1817. published by Skinner & Crosby.] 
" On Thursday last, the new Presbyterian church, in this village, 
was dedicated to the service of God. The construction of the 
building is neat and elegant. The expense of it, when completed, 
will be between sixteen and seventeen thousand dollars. The day 
was uncommonly fine. The house was opened at half-past ten, 
and immediately rilled. The appropriate services of the day 
commenced at 11 o'clock ; the introductory prayer by the Rev. Mr. 
Poole of Brutus ; the sermon and dedicatory prayer by the Rev. 
D. C. Lansing, the pastor elect. Appropriate music was well 
performed hy the choir of singers. The exercises of the day were 
highly pleasing to a crowded audience. The elegance, solemnity, 
and pathos of the sermon were calculated to arrest the attention, 
and we believe made an impression on every heart. 

" The trustees of the Presbyterian societ3 r , under whose care the 
church was built, certainly deserve well of the community. The 
edifice does honor to the spirit, enterprise, and liberality of its 
patrons, and does honor to the rising village. Few are the years 
since this place of our habitation was a wilderness, where the 
songs of Zion were never sung, and the prayer of faith never ut- 
tered. The third and fourth stanzas in one of the hymns sung on 
this day, were peculiarly appropriate, and produced a correspond- 
ing effect : 

Once o'er all this favor" d land. 
Savage wilds and darkne-s spread ; 

« 

Sheltered now by Thy kind hand, 

Cheerful dwellings rear their head. 
Where once frowned the tangled wood. 

Fertile fields and meadows smile : 
Where the stake of torture stood, 

Rises now Thy Church's pile. 

Where the arrow's vengeful flight, 
Sex, nor age, nor childhood spared, 



84 



Fraud was skill and power was right— ■ 

There Thy gospel's sound is heard ! 
Heard alas ! too oft in vain. 

Yet, with mild prevailing force, 
Spreads its love-diffusin<r reign, 

Nor can aught impede its course.' 1 

Page 37. — The omission of a line, in the correction of the proof- 
sheets, as the discourse was passing through the press, qualifying 
Mr. Hardenburgh's gift to the Theological Seminary, renders an 
additional statement necessary. The conditions required by the 
Synod of Geneva, in locating the institution at Auburn, were the 
procurement of ten acres of land for a site, and a subscription of 
$35,000 in the county of Cayuga. Four acres of the land on 
which the Seminary now stands were obtained of the Messrs. 
Cuyler of Aurora— two acres by gift, and the balance by exchange 
for an equal amount of land adjoining the Seminary lot, procured 
from the Hardenburgh estate, which, together with six acres ad- 
ditional, and eight acres in all, constitute the gift of Mr. Harden- 
burgh to the institution. 

Page 67. — The following reminiscences of Rev. M. L. R. Thomp- 
son, D.D., who united with this church at an early age, are of 
interest in this connection. They are taken from his biographical 
sketch of Rev. Reuben Tinker, who was the classmate of Mr. 
Dibble, in the Theological Seminary, and his co-laborer in the 
missionary work : 

" The writer has special reason for remembering Sheldon Dibble, 
one of the purest, noblest, sincerest souls that ever dwelt in a hu- 
man body. He was a missionary from his boyhood; converted 
in very early life, his whole character was developed and matured 
under the influence of Christian principles. I knew him inti- 
mately. At school, in Auburn — Noble D. Strong was our teacher 
— we sat side by side for three whole years, studying the same les- 



85 



sous. There sat Pease, also at the same form, Lorenzo W., our 
classmate, who also became a missionary of the American Board, 
and died many years ago on the Island of Cyprus. My heart is 
dissolved in tenderness, while I recall the memory of these dearest 

and true t friends of my early days Neither Pease nor 

myself was converted, and never shall I forget the faithful and af- 
fectionate endeavors, which Dibble never ceased to make, for our 
spiritual good —his earnest occasional exhortation, his constant care 
to commend religion to us hy his example, and his gentle, loving, 
tearful reproofs, when he found either of us guilty of any serious 
fault— often by a mere look, with his large blue eyes swimming in 
tears. He lived in the family of good old Colonel Bellamy, and 
paid for his board by his labor out of school hours, " doing," as we 
say, " the chores." How shall I forget the times when he used to 
take me into Col. Bellamy's barn and there talk with me about 
my soul, and pray with me, and for me. on the hay-mow T . And 
how shall I forget the times, when, having prevailed on me to ac- 
company him in an excursion through the outskirts of the village, 
to distribute religious tracts, he used to lead me off, after the work 
was done, to an old lime kiln, in a retired field, and there pray 
fervently for a blessing on what he had done, and for me, that I 
might become a faithful and true servant of Jesus Christ. 

I thought at one time, during those days, that Dibble's prayers 
were answered, and that I had become a Christian. Well do I re- 
member the day when I first indulged such a hope, and told him 
of it. A happier person than he was then, I never saw. It 
seemed as if he could not contain his joy. He literally shouted 
and fell upon me, weeping tears of unutterable happiness. Dibble 
was possessed of far more than ordinary intellectual power, as 
well as of more than ordinary piety. He was really an uncom-_ 
mon man, as all who knew him might testify. His " Voice from 
the Sandwich Islands," and his " Thoughts on Missions," pub- 



86 



lislied by the American Tract Society, will abundantly sustain 
what I say of him, both in regard to his intellect and heart. 

The people in Auburn remember, some of them at least, those 
famous monthly concerts in which Tinker and Dibble took a 
part. Their prayers, which seemed to take the very Heavens, and 
their earnest spirit-stirring appeals, I almost fancy are sounding 
yet in that old session-room of the First Presbyterian Church ; 
and some of the better sort, I have no doubt, hear them occasion- 
ally to this da}^. Not only at the monthly concerts, but at all the 
prayer-meetings, and conference meetings, and fast -day meetings, 
in the Sabbath school, and in all the gatherings for religious use 
and edification their prayers and addresses were listened to with 
deepest interest and effect. 



OFFICERS. 



PASTOR . 
CHARLES HAWLEY. 



ELDERS. 



RICHARD STEEL. 
ABIJAH FITCH, 
DANIEL HEWSON, 
HARMON WOODRUFF, 
JAMES HYDE, 
CHARLES A. LEE, 



JAMES S. SEYMOUR. 
SYLVESTER WILLARD. 
ISRAEL F. TERRILL. 
FRANKLIN L. GRISWOLD, 
ALBERT H. GOSS, 
HENRY J. S ART WELL. 



DEACONS. 



ELIPHALET F. PUTNAM, 
RICHARD H. BLOOM, 
CHARLES P. WILLIAMS, 



HAA'ERLY' BROOKS, 
MORTIMER L. BROWNE. 
JAMES SEYMOUR, Jr. 



TRUSTEES. 

JOHN OLMSTED. ( ORY'DON H. MERRIMAN, 

HARMON WOODRUFF, JOHN S. FOWLER, 

HORACE T. COOK, GEORGE J. LETCHWORTI 

EDWARD C. SELOVER. 



TREASURER, 



HORACE T. COOK, 



BUILDING COMMITTEE. 

HARMON WOODRUFF, EDWARD C. SELOVER, 

JOHN S. FOWLER, JOHN OLMSTED, 

CHARLES P. WILLIAMS, HORACE T. COOK. 

ISRAEL F. TERRILL. 



H 112 82 



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